Leisure Kicks - The essencial sport and leisure guide

Competitive diving as we know it today is just a little over a century old, having evolved from the simple bathside plunge dive commonly associated with swimmers.  Early competitions involved plain dives – without twists or turns – off of high platforms. The first recorded championship diving competition held in the UK was the Championships of Scotland, held in 1889. The so-called ‘fancy dives’ of today actually began with gymnasts in Germany and Sweden who would practice landing difficult routines in water rather than on the hard floors of the gym. They would often even move their training equipment to beaches in the summer, where they could land their acrobatics in the sea. The practice was soon adapted to diving platforms and competitions began alongside those that still existed for plain diving. The first springboards were made out of planks of wood coated in coconut matting to prevent slipping, but they had the disadvantage of not being particularly springy in comparison to the now-standard springboard you may find in your local lido!

Over time, rules about body positions have formed, such as the straight, tucked and piked standard dives, though in the early days these went by different names. Men’s diving was first introduced into the Olympic Games in 1904 - women’s competition had its Olympic start in 1912 – and has remained a part of it since.

Choose your sport

A Mexican diver taking the plunge at the 1980 Olympic Games
Wikimedia Commons of World Sport